Where Will the Jobs Come From?

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By: John Mauldin, Millennium Wave Advisors

For the last year, as I travel around, it seems a main topic of conversation is “Where will my kids find jobs?” It is a topic I am all too familiar with. Where indeed? Youth unemployment in the US is 17.1%. If you are in Europe the problem is even more pronounced. The basket case that is Greece has youth unemployment of 58%, and Spain is close at 55%. Portugal is at 36% and in Italy it’s 35%. France is over 25%. Is this just a cyclical symptom of the credit crisis? Much of it clearly is, but I think there is something deeper at work here, an underlying tectonic shift in the foundation of employment. And that means that before we see a true recovery in the unemployment rate, there must be a shift in how we think about work and training for the future of employment. This week is the first of what will be occasional letters over the coming months with an emphasis on employment. (This letter will print a little longer, as there are a lot of charts.)

But first, the staff at Mauldin Economics is furiously putting the finishing touches on your free Post-Election Economic Summit webinar, which will air tomorrow at 2 pm Eastern. They are distilling multiple hours of discussion into a fast-paced, thoughtful (and often lively) conversation about what is in store in our economic future. Panelists and guests include Mohamed El-Erian, James Bianco, Barry Ritholtz, Gary Shilling, Barry Habib, and Rich Yamarone. We also have a truly unique interview with the chiefs of staff of Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Rob Portman. While we excerpted part of that interview for the webinar, the entire interview will be made available. Now, let’s think about employment.

The Next Bubble

Let’s look at a few facts put forth by the Young Entrepreneur Council from their list of 43 (available here):

•  1 out of 2 college grads  – about 1.5 million, or about 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree holders age 25 or younger  – were unemployed or underemployed in 2011.
•  For high school grads (age 17-20), the unemployment rate was 31.1 percent from April  2011-March 2012; underemployment was 54 percent.
•  For young college grads (age 21-24), unemployment was 9.4 percent last year, while underemployment was 19.1 percent.
•  According to some researchers, up to 95 percent of job positions lost occurred in low-tech, middle-income jobs like bank tellers. Gains in jobs are going to workers at the top or the bottom, not in the middle.
•  More college graduates are getting low-level jobs, period. U.S. bachelor’s degree holders are more likely to wait tables, tend bar or become food-service helpers than to be employed as engineers, physicists, chemists or mathematicians combined  – 100,000 versus 90,000.

•  According to new U.S. government projections, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings in the next eight years will require a bachelor’s degree or higher. Most job openings by 2020 will be in low-wage professions like retail sales, fast food and truck driving.

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